I was ‘sweet 16’ when I meet Jerome. He dated my older sister and hung out at my house. I would always joke around and sing funny Bollywood songs for him. He told me I could do an act with hula-hoops on the bar at Fringe. Instead I got a job cleaning vomit from the men’s urinal. He said it built character!
When I was 18, Jerome called and told me to drop by his new bar. I followed his directions and chucked a left onto Caledonian. My pace quickened as I hit the stinky bin-infested laneway, and I quickly found myself at a tiny little shop front, the inside lined with quaint booths and a small bar. At the time, space and a lack of customers permitted there to be bar stools. That’s where Jerome sat with a stubbie in his hand and a smile on his face! ‘What do you think?’ He asked. ‘It’s fucking cool,’ I said. And it was fucking cool, it was like a movie set. I felt like I was in the movie The Godfather — not that I’ve seen it! It felt underground, different, it felt anti-establishment like a speakeasy in the 1920s, it was a secret you could fit in your pocket, which made it feel exclusive, but not in a stupid fancy way. There was absolutely nothing fancy about it, it was gritty and real with a sound track that held it’s rustically rare charm together.
Jerome offered me a job.
Every night was an adventure. People write movie scripts about that shit. Though if my liver ever fails, I’ll know why!
But it wasn’t always pure debauchery…(lie); I learnt how to do amazing things like:
Putting out bin fires with teapots and saucepans of water
Dish dominating
Pulling four grand on a bar that consisted of two pieces of ply and three mini-bar fridges!
I got to be free thinking and creative!
My weirdness was not only nurtured but encouraged!
For example, the task of writing tip jar slogans was not only beneficial to that creative area of my brain but also created plenty of entertainment and interaction between the staff and the customers beyond the usual: ‘Hello sir’, ‘Can I help you sir?’ ‘Have a good night sir’ bull shit.
When the tip sign reads ‘tip if you have a large penis’ you can only imagine the kind of witty imaginative dialogue that takes place!
St Jerome’s was a playground for adults and for a good time it was a place to be free and be yourself! It didn’t matter who you were or what you wore!
Work was unpredictable and the staff parties were unforgettable, like my always-dependable manager Ben doing some weird interpretive dance with a massive jar of olives over the back handrail! And the 100s of silver coins stuck firmly to the floors and walls with bottles of exploding lemonade that had to be cleaned by a pregnant woman in the morning!
Every night was a massive celebration! Like a wedding or a birthday or that one where a piece of skin gets chopped from your penis. Except we didn’t need typical boring excuses — we were young and old and fat and scrawny and we had St Jerome’s. We made our own rules. We were unconventional. If you didn’t like champagne in a mug, bad luck, or Pepsi in you turkey, bad luck or maybe the toilets weren’t up to standards...
Let’s put it this way, pissing on someone else’s piss builds character. St Jerome’s was a building bursting with character (and piss) that housed characters and facilitated every single one of them having the time of their lives!
And nothing that good lasts forever!